There are several attributes of meat quality that relate to palatability and consumer eating satisfaction. Assessments of such qualities can be useful for a variety of food animals. Such assessments can also be useful in both live animals and animal carcasses. For example, carcass weight, backfat and/or loin depth measurements may be used to determine the value of pork. Fat-free lean in swine carcasses may be predicted from fat depth and loin depth measurements.
Current fat and depth measurement processes employ manual methods, optical probes, and cross-sectional scanning, and involve highly trained technicians performing time-consuming and labor-intensive work to achieve accurate measurements. Thus, a significant challenge is presented with measuring fat and loin depths in a packing plant environment at line speeds. As an example, with many plants running their chain speed at 1200 carcasses per hour, a carcass would be measured in less than 3 seconds if the carcass is going to be measured during the packing process. In addition, pork carcasses are not routinely split anywhere along the loin that would expose the internal tissue for either a subjective or quantitative measure of fat and loin depth.